On the third day God gathered together unto one place the waters under the firmament; and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas; and God saw that it was good, and said, Let the earth bring forth the green grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit trees yielding fruit after their kind.[Genesis 1:9-13.] After the creation of the firmament Moses calls our attention to the completeness, location, and order of the elements. Soon after the gathering of the waters into one place, boundaries were fixed for the sea so that it would not overflow the land. Now, after the submerged land appeared, it became necessary that the waters under the firmament (that is, those which are in the mid-regions of the air and had been stored up there in a common mixture) should be collected in an orderly manner and provided with banks. It is not true that no water is found in certain isolated regions, for the Hebrew Sea comes from the Hyrcanian Sea, the Hyrcanian from the Adriatic, the Adriatic from the Euxine Sea; and there are also countless rivers, springs and lakes, separated by regions far distant from each other. But the waters, it is said, were gathered together in one place, because the sundered waters of lakes and rivers (as Solomon says) flow down to the sea of their origin. When the land is inundated by floods, it is neither visible nor of any use to us; but when it emerges after the floods have subsided, and again becomes more and more visible, it also becomes useful to our people and their cattle as it becomes productive. This is here very clearly revealed by Moses; for as soon as the land appears he brings forth the herbs, shrubs, and trees. After the gathering of the waters, he brings forth the earth, green and in flower. He placed the earth in the center of the world, and endowed it with veins of gold, silver, bronze, copper, zinc, lead, and iron, and with all kinds of seed-bearing herbs, which are very pleasant as soon as they become clad in verdure, and the trees have very sweet fruit. They also say that on this day God made Paradise, the most fruitful and wonderful garden; and he planted it with every species of tree, and set in it a wonderful fountain.

ILLUSTRATION

THE THIRD DAY OF THE CREATION

Again a square, and inscribed with four concentric circles, or three orbits. Otherwise the cut is blank except for the hand of the creator in the upper left hand corner. The creation is still concerned with the elementary universe, consisting of earth (the center) and the three other elements of water, air, and fire (the three contiguous orbits). The ethereal universe will be added on the fourth day when the planets and stars are fixed in their orbit; while the empyreal universe, or zone of rest, will appear on the seventh day.